


Santa Baby

by Bubblekilt



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Cuban Lance, Fluff, Inspired by Fanart, M/M, Orphaned Keith (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-09-13 02:00:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9101359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bubblekilt/pseuds/Bubblekilt
Summary: Keith Kogane has never had a real Christmas- not until he has a run-in with a handsome musician who insists on taking him home for the holiday.  Through a series of new experiences, Keith meets Lance's wild family and his gaggle of strange roommates, and finds himself hoping that maybe this will be the first Christmas of many.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The beginning of this fic was inspired by some gorgeous animated fanart by tumblr user prinzcake, and you can view it here:  
> http://prinzcake.tumblr.com/post/154889556428/keith-scuffed-his-boots-on-the-snow-littered  
> (Seriously, go check it out, it's amazing!) Everything in italics in the beginning belongs to prinzcake, not me. Happy reading!

_Keith scuffed his boots on the snow-littered ground. He knew he was standing a little too near to the edge but it was the closest he could get. There was a guitarist basking just across the opposite platform and he wanted to go closer, but the train was arriving soon. He couldn’t afford to take a detour._

_Keith kept darting his eyes onto parts of the clothing. A hoodie. Washed out jeans._

_He tried not to be obvious, but it was frustrating. There wasn’t enough of a crowd to explain staring. He could tell the guitarist was tan, but he couldn’t catch a clear view of his face. The snapshots hovered in his head, but it was like trying to piece together a puzzle that he had never seen before._

_He could just make out the song to be_ [ _Little Drummer Boy_ ](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dbma5wRFFa-c&t=MTRiZjc2MDVlYmM2NDczN2ViYzljNzBiYWQwYWI2NmIzZDBjODIwYyxtWXI2aGkxUQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AlzNBDzjhso6HW8LBlUbR1g&p=http%3A%2F%2Fspace-pidge.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F154913524121%2Fprinzcake-keith-scuffed-his-boots-on-the&m=1) _, and he usually thought it was a stupid song, but it actually sounded…nice? Keith exhaled a puff into the frost air. The cold must be getting to his head._

_The music was punctured by the distant harsh rhythm of the railway tracks. He felt a small flutter of panic. There was no telling when he would come across the guy again. He was going to take a good look across the cabin windows once the train reached him. It was his last chance._

_He felt a blast of icy wind as the train entered the station. Keith quickly lifted his head and stared at the guitarist through stuttering planes of the metal walls._

_Oh…a sharp face, but smooth. Long fingers too, on the guitar.  He had…..blue eyes. It was dark, but definitely blue. Pretty._

_And it was looking at him._

_Keith froze. The train slowed to a stop, and so did his world._

_It was 5 degrees, but it burned._

_And he still had a train to catch._

_If only he could move._

Through the window, he watched the boy’s face shift into something more than a stare.  Keith’s stomach hit his shoes.  The beautiful bastard was _smiling_ at him, a big cheeky grin, and as Keith watched he started to pick out another tune.  It was jazzy and fast paced, and the guy didn’t break eye contact as Keith picked up the strains of a sassy “Santa Baby” coming from the guitar.  He waggled an eyebrow at Keith, the edges of his hood soggy with snow.

The train door alarms blared and the spell was broken.  Keith managed to slip inside the train before the doors shut in his face, and the stranger on the other side of the window continued playing as Keith wedged himself into the crowd.  After grabbing the overhead bar he sneaked a glance backwards at the guy in the hoodie.  Keith wasn’t sure if it was a trick of the light, but as the train pulled away from the station he could swear he saw the guy wink. 

* * *

 

“I swear, Hunk, he was looking into my soul.  I’ve never seen eyes that color.”

Hunk chuckled on the other end of the line.  “You’re such a hipster sometimes.  Besides, didn’t you use that line on that girl in the bookstore the other day?”

Lance groaned, putting his head down on the kitchen counter.  “This was _different._ I played him Santa Baby, for chrissakes.  How often do I not get a person’s number after I play them ‘Santa Baby’?”

He must have been on speakerphone in the car, because the next voice he heard was Pidge’s.  “Did you, I don’t know— _ask_ him?”

“He was across the platform, Pidge.  What was I supposed to do, fly?”  Lance flopped on the couch, smiling as Blue hopped up on to his chest with her ears perked.  She batted at his nose with an outstretched paw, and he booped her right back. 

“Guess you’ll just have to go back and see if you can find him, then.”  Hunk said.  “Did you remember to pick up the stuff for your mamá? I’m happy to help with Christmas dinner, but we need actual food if we’re gonna cook something other than cereal.”

Lance grimaced, thinking of the apartment’s bare pantry.  His family was coming in less than eight hours for Christmas, and even though the apartment was decorated to the nines he didn’t think he had anything in the fridge other than yogurt.  He’d been planning on getting groceries hours ago, after leaving the train station, but he’d been so distracted by those violet eyes that he’d completely forgotten.

“I’ll go out and get food once you guys are back from campus.”  They’d left early this morning so that Pidge could pick a project up from the science labs, Hunk dragging a grumpy Pidgeon out the door.  Shiro was up there too—he and Allura would drive to the airport that night to pick up the gaggle of family members. Lance had no problem sharing them with the rest of his roommates—either they lived too far away from family or didn’t have any. 

He wondered if the kid with the pretty eyes had anyone to spend Christmas with.  Blue batted his nose again.

Lance sighed.

* * *

 

  Snow was annoying, Keith decided.  It was pretty when you were sitting inside with a warm cup of tea and a good book, but slogging through it with an armful of dinners-for-one was starting to get on his nerves. 

The blue sky from this morning was gone, and the snow was falling hard enough to cover the street with a blanket of white.  Keith’s shoes were soaked through, his jeans wet to the knee and his tips of his fingers were numb in his gloves.  He was starting to regret the decision not to just take the subway home, but the thought of running into the guitar player again was enough to raise a blush.  He’d like to hear him play again (and he wouldn’t mind seeing those blue eyes another few times) but after he’d frozen like an idiot this morning he couldn’t face the guy again.  He was going warm all over again just thinking about it—being face to face with the guy might make him spontaneously combust.  He’d caught himself humming Santa Baby more than once that day, and he couldn’t figure out if he was pissed or pleased when the song came on the speakers in the commissary where he worked.

It had been a hell of a day.  People rushed in and out of the store, yelling about returns and lost orders and last minute gifts.  Keith had had to deal with two customer meltdowns, heaps of exchanges, and way too many small children knocking over display stands.  By all accounts, he should be royally irritated—but he couldn’t work himself up the way he usually did.  He even found himself grudgingly appreciating the snow in the air as he walked up the block.  As a matter of fact, he was so busy watching the falling flakes that he wasn’t watching where he was going.  Someone collided with him, and he slipped and scrambled for purchase on the icy sidewalk before he felt himself falling.  Immediately, the peace of the snowy street broke, and he yelped as he went down backwards.

He smacked his head on the sidewalk, hard, and his vision went dark for a second.  When it came back, there was a pair of worried blue eyes staring down at him.  They looked like the same eyes from this morning.  He groaned.

Shit, was he _hallucinating_ now?  His poor gay heart couldn’t take much more of this.

“Are you okay?  I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you.”  The blurry stranger offered a hand before trailing off, his eyebrows furrowing.  Keith realized it the same time he did, and the momentary panic cleared his fuzzy head a little. 

“Santa Baby.”  He growled, narrowing his eyes.  The stranger grinned wide, and Keith’s stomach quivered.

“Most people call me Lance.  _Dios mio_ , that was a smack.  How’s your head?”

Keith scowled, smacking the stranger’s hand away and fighting his way to a standing position despite the dizziness.  His boxed dinners were all over the place, wet corners sticking out of the snow.  The guy picked one up with two fingers, looking at it like it was a used tissue. 

“Is this yours?”  He asked, sounding concerned.  Keith grabbed it and tried to put it back into the bag he’d been carrying, but the plastic had ripped during his fall and it fell right back out the bottom.  He cursed as he went to gather the rest of them.  The dark-haired boy helped pick up the soggy cardboard boxes with only a few concerned glances at Keith, who was wobbly-legged. 

“Do you know your name?” he asked.

“Keith.” he said, his voice short.  He thought he might have a concussion.  His head felt like that one time he’d gotten kicked into a wall during martial arts practice.  His feet slid in the snow again, and the blue-eyed stranger—Lance—caught him under the elbow before he could go sprawling. 

“Okay, you’ve convinced me.  You’re coming home with me.”

“I’m fine.”  Keith snapped, but his anger made the dizziness worse.  He didn’t want to push away the guy’s arms—they were actually nice and muscular, and Keith found himself wondering vaguely if the guy worked out.  Lance looked down at him, concerned.

“No, no, my friend, this is totally fate _._ My roommate Hunk has EMT training, and running into you again can’t have been an accident.  Unless you were following me.”  The guy wiggled his eyebrows, and Keith was upright in a second.

 “I’m okay.  Just let me go back to my apartment and sleep this off.”

“At least let me walk you back to your place.”

“Fine.  Whatever.”  Keith said, starting in the opposite direction.  Behind him, Lance cleared his throat.

“Um, weren’t you walking _that_ way?”  Keith paused before starting back the way he’d come, but for some reason that way didn’t seem familiar.  He sighed.  Awesome.  Lance pursed his lips. 

“It’s decided.”  When Keith opened his mouth to protest, Lance held up a hand.  “Nope, I can’t leave someone as pretty as you alone out here.  It’s cold and you’re lost—and this snow is just supposed to get heavier.  I’m taking you home.  Come on, I live just up the street.”

Lance gathered up his own groceries and motioned for Keith to follow him.  Keith hesitated, unsure.

“You’re not some kind of a serial killer, are you?”

Lance smiled again, the kind of smile that made Keith’s already-wobbly knees go to Jello.  “While I am many things: charming, devilishly pretty, a rock star at karaoke—“

“Not to mention modest.”  Keith grumbled.  Lance laughed.

“I’m not into murder.  Too messy.”

With a hasty glance in the direction he’d thought he’d come, Keith gathered the pile of soggy dinners into his arms and followed Lance into the thickening sheet of white.

* * *

 

“Looks like a mild concussion, but you should be fine in a few days.”  Hunk put away the penlight he’d been flashing in Keith’s eyes (thank God) and motioned for him to sit back in the chair.  Hunk left the room, first aid kit in tow, and Keith found his eyes wandering to the only other person in the room.   Lance was across the kitchen, humming as he stirred a bowl of something.  Keith couldn’t help but watch him—the guy was fascinating.  Up close, he had legs for miles, covered to the knees with an apron that said ‘Kiss the cook but don’t touch the buns’.  There was a streak of corn flour smeared on his cheek, and Keith had a bizarre desire to brush it off.  He sat on his hands.  Lance, seeming oblivious, bounced over with a spoon and stuck it in front of Keith’s nose.

“Taste.”  He ordered.  Keith made a face, but when he opened his mouth his snarky comment was drowned in some kind of garlicky sauce.  He was so surprised he almost choked, but Lance raised hopeful eyebrows. 

“S’good.”  He managed past the mouthful.  Lance practically danced back towards the stove, and the little one—Pidge, Keith remembered—walked into the kitchen before receiving the same treatment.  She, however, smacked Lance on the nose and grabbed a cold dinner roll from the bowl on the counter.

“Nuh-uh.”  She told him, motioning towards Keith.  “You have a new taste tester.  Or go torture Hunk, I have to finish presents.”

Hunk came in then, tying his own apron around his waist before starting to prepare the roasting pig.  “And we have to get this dinner going.  Shiro just called—the snow’s coming down, but they’re doing their best to make it here in the next half hour or so.”

“Oh, man, the little kids are going to freak out at all this snow.”  Lance said excitedly.

“How many siblings do you have?”  Keith had no idea why Hunk started laughing when he asked the question, and Lance turned around with a proud expression.

“Including me? Ten.”

“ _Ten?”_ Keith had never seen that many children in the same family, let alone stuffed into a tiny apartment. 

“We make it work.  You sound scared, Mullet.”  Lance teased, flicking some flour in his direction.  Hunk shook his head at the two of them.

“Don’t waste that maseca, guys.  It’s expensive.”  Lance raised an eyebrow. As Hunk turned his back he glanced at Keith and put a finger to his lips, grabbed a handful of flour and started sneaking towards his roommate.  With an explosive battle cry, he leapt up and showered Hunk in the white powder, cracking up when Hunk whirled around.

“Come on, Lance!”  He wasn’t angry as he tried to dust the flour out of his hair.  “I’m going to have to change before your mom gets here.”

He went out of the room laughing, shaking powder over the floor, and Keith heard Pidge sneeze in the other room.  He turned back around to see Lance holding another handful.

“I don’t think you want to do that.”  Keith warned. 

“You talked about martial arts training on the way back.  Why don’t you show me what you’ve got?”  He made a mock-ninja pose, giving Keith the “come hither” gesture.  Keith leaned away from him, shaking his head. 

“Wa-chaw!”  Lance crowed, covering Keith in a fine layer of dust.

“Okay, you got me—even if that noise was borderline racist.” 

“You gonna get me back for it or what?”  Lance goaded.  Keith shrugged, standing up to stretch.

“I’m okay with a little flour in my hair.”  But Lance had snuck around the back of him while he was talking, and before he could react there was a stinging slap on the seat of his pants.  Keith twisted around, seeing the chalk-white mark of a handprint on his ass.  He turned back to Lance, eyes narrowed.

“Oh, it’s on.” 

The knock-down, drag-out food fight that occurred after that was an absolute mess. The flour wasn’t even the worst part—about midway through Lance found a carton of eggs.  Keith countered with the half-cup of milk that Hunk had left on the counter, and the battle went completely downhill when they knocked each other backwards into the oven door and the pot that had been sitting on the warmer fell, splattering both of them in bright yellow sauce.  Despite the garlic smell, Keith found himself cracking up with Lance at the sight of the rest of the kitchen.  Hunk was going to kill both of them.  Keith was surprised.  He’d never really celebrated Christmas, or even done much cooking—but this was actually fun.  Lance had stopped laughing, now breathless from the flurry of activity.  His long legs were in a tangle with Keith’s, the position strangely similar to the pile they’d landed in this afternoon.  This time, though, Keith didn’t mind so much.  As a matter of fact, he felt himself leaning over to wipe a splat of sauce off of Lance’s lower lip.  Lance froze, his eyes drifting to Keith’s, paralyzing blue, and his face breaking into that ridiculous Cheshire cat smile. 

Keith leaned.

Lance leaned.

“Um?”  The voice was Hunk’s, but there was definitely more than one person in the doorway.  Both of them looked up at the pile of people in the doorway, at least twelve faces staring down at them in various states of amusement.  Lance grinned up at all of them as Keith eyeballed the counters, the ceiling, the floor—hell, anything but the family standing in front of him—with his cheeks flaming. 

The silence was broken by a little voice.  “Unca Lance!” 

The kid, who couldn’t have been more than five, dove easily through the legs of the adults standing in front of him and bolted for Lance’s lap.  He looked with wide eyes at the puddles of sauce dripping from his uncle’s hair as Lance pulled him close.

“Unca Lance, did you and your _novio_ have a fight?”  Novio?  Keith glanced over at the little boy, who stared back at him with worried, solemn eyes.  Lance started laughing.

“No, Matty, we were just playing.”  A small buzz ran through the group, but the word seemed to spark movement in the doorway.  A stout woman charged forward through the mess of children, wild black curls escaping from her bun.  She looked indignant.  Her eyes roved over the kitchen, taking in the mess of food splatter and the two boys sprawled on the floor.  Keith froze under her gaze.  She narrowed her eyes at him, cocking her head to the side and examining him from tip to tail. 

He may have been a black belt, but he knew when he was up against something he couldn’t handle—and Rosa McClain was about the scariest damn thing he’d ever seen.  He was afraid to blink, lest she decided to cook him for dinner with the pig in the oven.  Was she going to kick him out?  He supposed he could figure out a way home in the snow.  Maybe.  Lance’s older brothers (Jesus, how many of them _were_ there? _)_ backed Rosa like pit bulls.  Keith dimly wondered if this Christmas might be his last.  Rosa’s eyes hardened as she finished her once over, practically bristling.  She opened her mouth to speak and Keith winced, ready for the onslaught.

“ _Lance.”_  The woman began, her voice like acid.  “Why you don’t feed your _chico mono_ , huh?  ¡ _Que flaco!”_

Lance ducked his head as she took a swipe at it, scrambling for cover in the wrecked kitchen, even as Keith stuttered and tried to explain.  “Mamá!”

Matty ran back giggling to someone in the group (Keith assumed his parents were in the crowd somewhere) as Rosa let loose a torrent of rapid-fire Spanish.  She whacked her son on the head again before pulling him into a fierce hug, not seeming to care about the egg soaking into her blouse.

“I missed you, _nene_.”

Lance pulled her in tight, his long legs dwarfing her by at least two feet.  “Missed you too.”

 Keith looked away, feeling like he was intruding on something.  Rosa turned to him next, giving him another up and down before pulling him into a hug too.  Keith went stiff as a board, glaring at Lance over his mother’s shoulder.  Lance winked.

“I’m not- I mean we aren’t—” Keith started, but got cut off by the warm voice at his ear.

“Welcome to the family,” Rosa said, patting him on the back. 

_What?_

“Uh, thanks.”  The next few minutes were a blur of names and faces and touching. (So. Much. Touching.)  He met Lance’s sisters (Ane, Mariposa, Laura, Jacqueline, and Reyna), Lance’s brothers (Javier, Angel, Alex, Luis, and Marco), Lance’s stepdad (“Call me Jack,” he’d asked), and Lance’s nephew, Mateo.  Bringing up the rear was a tall, broad-shouldered guy with a friendly face.  Keith knew him from somewhere, but he couldn’t place it as the man stuck out a hand.

“I’m Shiro, Lance’s roommate.  Nice to meet you.”  Shiro, huh?  The name clicked with the face as Keith went in for a handshake, and his eyes widened.

“Wait, Shiro?  Like _Takashi Shirogane?_ World class fighter pilot? All-around garrison hero?”  He couldn’t swallow his excitement.  Shiro ran a hand over the back of his neck, looking sheepish.

“I don’t know about all that.”  He said, cheeks going pink.  The silver-haired woman next to him laughed and swatted him with a glove.

“Don’t be so modest.” Her clipped accent was mock stern, but Keith could hear the affection in her voice.  “That arm is proof enough for me.”

She went up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, and Keith saw the prosthetic arm hanging at Shiro’s side—he remembered seeing the jet crash on the news, hearing about how the young pilot had played chicken for hours in enemy fire while a mission snuck over the lines below. 

“I’m Allura.”  The tall woman stuck out a hand as well, smiling graciously.  She carried herself like royalty, Keith noticed, and Lance kept sneaking satisfied glances at the couple as he wiped down the counter.  Rosa swiped the dishtowel from Lance’s hands, shooing him out of the way.

“Go get cleaned up.”  She ordered.  Hunk nodded at the stains on Keith’s clothes.

“We’ve got this handled if you want to shower that stuff off.  Lance has some spare clothes that might fit you, and there’s towels in the bathroom.”

Pidge cackled in the other room.  “Help each other out.  Hey!”

 It seemed one of the brothers (probably Javier) had socked her in the arm at the comment, and Keith raised an eyebrow as he watched her go after him like a Rottweiler.  She was tiny, but damn was she vicious.  Maybe Keith could try her sometime in sparring—she seemed like she had a good handle on her offensive moves. Lance slipped an arm around his shoulder as he ushered Keith towards his room, and Keith gulped when he felt the ropy muscles tighten around him. Maybe he'd need some offensive moves of his own. 

* * *

 

“Sorry about the mess.  Hunk keeps bugging me to clean, but it always slips my mind.”

The room was small and cluttered, and as Lance dug around in his drawers for some clean shirts Keith found himself staring at the pictures that littered the walls.  Both of them had showered off (separately, much to Lance’s dismay), and Keith was already wearing a pair of too-big sweatpants.  He almost stumbled over the long legs of the pants when he stepped forward to examine the photos on the corkboard.

There was one of Lance posing at an airfield in front of a beat-up Spitfire plane.  There were more photos of his family, and a few of him playing guitar surrounded by his siblings.  He was so focused on the board that when something brushed his leg he nearly hit the ceiling.  He looked down to see a Siamese cat winding around his ankles.  It gazed back up at him with stunning sapphire eyes, letting out a petulant _mrow_ when Keith didn’t lean down to pet it.  Lance picked up the cat, rubbing noses with it. 

“Hey, Blue.”  He said fondly. He handed a spare shirt over to Keith, leaving his own draped over the back of the desk chair.  He had more muscles than Keith would have expected, and when Lance caught him staring both of them blushed. 

“You compose?”  Keith found himself asking.  There were different instruments scattered all around the far side of the room, recording equipment and manuscript paper set up next to the window.  Lance gave him a sheepish grin, trying to hide his blush in Blue’s fur.  He set the cat down and she bounced away from him, leaping up on top of the drum set with a light _thump_.

“It’s not professional or anything yet.  I’m trying to major, but money’s been tight.  What about you?  Do you play?”

Keith snorted.  “I played recorder in the fourth grade.  I was up for pilot certification at the garrison, but I’m on suspension right now.”

“What did you do?”  Lance’s eyes were glimmering with mischief, and Keith grinned at him.

“I’ve been riding in speeder races off the roof of the mess hall—made some pretty good money doing it too, until we got caught by security.  I still work in the commissary, though.”

“Pilot, huh?  You part of the Mile High Club?”  Lance asked seriously.  Keith choked on his own spit, and Lance jumped forward, looking alarmed.

“Kidding!  I was kidding!”  He whacked Keith on the back as he gasped for air.  They both jumped at the knock on the door, and Shiro swung it open, looking concerned.

“Are you two okay in here?”

“Yes!”  They chorused.  Lance pulled on his shirt quickly as Keith tried to gather himself, and Shiro raised an eyebrow at him.

“Rosa asked me to let you know that dinner’s almost ready.”  He looked back and forth between the two, trying to hold back a smile.  “Reyna and Marco are already fighting about who gets to sit next to you at dinner.  I’ve been put on kid duty, and I expect both of you to help.”

The thudding of little feet in the hallway behind him preceded a practical stampede, and Shiro went crashing to the floor as he was tackled from behind.  Keith stared as Lance charged into the pile of children, hauling one up under each arm.  Shiro erupted from the bottom of the heap with Matty in hand, tossing him towards the ceiling.  Keith’s stomach dropped, and he almost bolted forward to catch the kid, but the little boy whooped, squealing as he came back down in Shiro’s arms.  All the kids crowded around Shiro, hopping up and down.

“Me next, Takashi!”

“No, me!”

“Shiro, can I go after Angel?”

“You’ll have to catch him first!”  Lance crowed, taking off down the hallway with two kids in tow and Shiro right behind him.  Keith stood in the middle of the room, hopelessly confused.  Blue _mrow_ ed at him again, and out in the kitchen, Keith heard Rosa delegating jobs.  The herd of children thudded through the rest of the small apartment, and Keith heard Allura and Pidge yelp as they zoomed through the living room.  Lance came padding back through the hallway, looking concerned as he leaned on the doorway.

“Are you okay?  I know my family can be a lot, and this whole situation is a little weird.”

“No, they’re great!  I’m just not used to any of this.  The whole Christmas thing has never really clicked with me.”  Keith felt weird admitting it, but even spending holidays with foster families hadn’t felt exactly… _right._ It was freaking him out that any of this was going on, and it was freaking him out even worse that this whole situation actually seemed okay.  Even so, it was awkward to just intrude on someone else’s holiday, and Keith had the feeling he’d need to leave soon.  Lance pursed his lips.

“So this is your first real Christmas, huh?  Well, handsome, I’m happy to be your guide.  There is _so_ much we need to do: watch a few bad Christmas specials, eat some pork, open presents, and get you absolutely sloshed on Hunk’s eggnog.”

Keith looked at him, surprised.  “Wait, you’re okay with me just barging in on your family’s Christmas?”

Lance raised an eyebrow.  “You got another date I don’t know about?”

* * *

 

The kitchen was masterful mayhem.

People kept drifting in and getting shooed out by Hunk, and when Shiro tried to sneak a fingerful of food from one of the pots he got whacked on the knuckles with Rosa’s spatula.  Keith had been put to work shelling peas with Pidge, and somehow Lance and Allura had managed to get the kids sort of organized and playing some sort of charade game on the floor, but small people kept sneaking in to ask when dinner would be ready or to beg a bite from Hunk (who usually agreed).

By the time they all sat down to dinner it was dark outside.  There weren’t enough chairs in the apartment for everyone to fit around the table, and even after scrounging up couch cushions some of the kids ended up sitting on the floor.  Nobody seemed to mind, though, and the main conversation flew from one topic to another, with everyone chiming in and changing the subject whenever they felt like it.  Lance and Keith had been ushered into chairs next to each other, and the way Rosa kept looking at them made Keith feel like she knew something he didn’t.  He jumped when one of the kids accidentally smashed a plate—his nerves were still high, the amount of activity driving his anxiety through the roof.

He felt warm pressure on one of his hands and looked down to see Lance’s fingers entwined with his, callused and reassuring.

“This okay?”  He asked, his voice low enough that only Keith could hear.  Keith nodded, grateful for the support.  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Shiro attempting to hide a smile in his wineglass.  One of the little kids was crawling around under the table looking for their fork, Pidge was (loudly) arguing quantum mechanics with Hunk, and Lance’s hand was in his.

After dinner, they all gathered in the living room for presents.  There was nothing extravagant under the tree, but the kids seemed overjoyed with the model planes Pidge had made, the bundles of butter mochi carefully made and wrapped by Hunk.  Shiro and Allura traded nerdy Christmas sweaters (Star Trek for her, Star Wars for him) and when they kissed gently Keith couldn’t help but grin.

“Lance?”  It was Mariposa that spoke when the madness died down, Matty cuddled up in her lap.  “Don’t you have anything for Keith?”

Lance’s eyes snapped up, and he looked like he’d been caught at something.  His mouth worked for a minute, open and shut, before he scrambled upright and bolted for the bedroom.

“Be right back!”  he yelled over his shoulder.  Keith looked at Shiro in confusion, but the older man just shrugged at him.  When Lance returned, his guitar was slung over his shoulder.  He plunked down cross-legged next to Keith, nesting the guitar between his knees.  He held his tongue between his teeth while he tuned up, eyes flicking up to Keith nervously every few seconds.  The room settled as Lance strummed a small chord.  Keith shivered as the notes hit him one at a time, and he felt goosebumps pepper his arms as Lance started playing ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’. 

The tune was familiar—soft and easy, with Lance’s cheeky flair noticeably absent.  He held the guitar like it was made of glass, and he hummed along lightly as the song continued.  It was like magic to watch him, and Keith didn’t stop to check his staring.  Lance lit up when he played, long fingers stretching to hit the right notes and a little wrinkle forming between his eyebrows as the music wrapped the whole room in warmth.  Rosa sighed, nuzzling her nose into Luis’ hair and watching her son with bright eyes.  Shiro and Allura moved closer to each other, and Keith saw Pidge sneak her hand into Hunk’s.

All too soon the song was over, and the spell was broken.  The kids resumed their zooming around the house, and Rosa planted a kiss on the top of Lance’s head.  Keith felt his eyes stuck on Lance’s face, and when those blue eyes slid over to his he couldn’t pull his gaze away—not even when Reyna and Alex almost knocked the tree over.  Keith was kind of tipsy from the eggnog he’d had earlier, the pleasant blur of the evening intensifying when Lance nailed him with another one of those knee-knocking smiles.

It was weird.  It was loud. It was messy.

And Keith found himself falling in love with it.

* * *

 

After the gifts had all been opened Pidge and Lance cleaned up the kitchen in companionable silence.  Out in the living room, everyone was huddled up watching a cheesy Christmas special (Rudolph, Lance thought, from the music).  He heard Hunk laughing at Keith, who was on the edge of his seat from the time the film started.  Matty had been explaining the plot to him, and Keith nodding seriously like there would be a test afterward.

"So. Keith."  Pidge said after a while, putting away the last of the plates.  Lance looked at her, mock innocent.

"What about him?" He pretended not to notice when Pidge gave him her patented stare. 

"You two were practically making out at the dinner table.  Now are you going to give up the ghost and say you like this guy or do I need to get you drunk?”

“Pidge, we were just holding hands!  He looked so scared—the way he was staring, I don’t think he’s ever had a family holiday.  He was walking home with a bunch of microwave dinners, for crying out loud.  I had to do something, especially after I knocked him over like that.”  

Not to mention that out in the snow, Keith had looked like some kind of lonely statue.  It had to be fate, them seeing each other again after the strange meeting at the train station.  It wasn’t just Keith’s eyes that intrigued him (though those indigo peepers certainly didn’t hurt), it was the way he held himself, the weird way he was both overconfident and unsure at the same time.  Pidge groaned.

“Oh, come on, you called this morning fawning over the guy and then he landed in your lap!"

“No, he landed on the ground.”  Lance answered.  “Besides, he's a total badass-he races speeders at the garrison. What does he want to do with a struggling musician?"

Pidge grinned, putting a finger to her lips. She nodded towards the couch, where Matty was asleep on his side.  Keith was passed out with his body curled around Matty’s, one arm wrapped tightly around the toddler's waist to keep him from falling over the edge.  His hair was a mess, his black t-shirt rumpled up to show a strip of stomach, and Lance felt his heart melt a little at the sight. 

Beside him, Pidge snickered.

"Oh, you are going down."

* * *

 

The next morning felt weird. 

Keith woke up to the smell of hot pancakes, Hunk winking at him when he saw that he was awake.  The living room looked like a flophouse—full of bodies and blankets and fuzzy pajamas.  Sometime in the night Matty had moved to snuggle up with his mom on the floor, and Keith jumped when he felt breath on his ear.  Lance had somehow managed to wedge his skinny body between Keith and the back of the couch, his arm slung over Keith’s waist and his nose nuzzled into his shoulder.

Keith tried to untangle himself from the other boy’s legs, but apparently Lance was a light sleeper because he sat up immediately.  As soon as he realized where he was, he gave Keith a lazy grin, leaning back on his elbows.

“Morning, gorgeous.”  He said, with a cocky smile.

“You drool in your sleep.”  Keith replied, gesturing to Lance’s lips, which he hastily scrubbed at. 

Rosa had already put a lot of stuff by the door, and apparently Lance was going to fly back to Florida to spend the rest of the week with the family.  The flight was going to leave in a few hours, and after wolfing down a plate of pancakes, Keith decided that he didn’t want to overstay his welcome.  He grabbed his jacket, shrugging it on, and Lance nodded before getting up from the table.  As they walked towards the door, Lance babbled away, even more of a nervous ball of energy than he’d been the day before.

“Listen, if you ever want to—I mean if you’d _like_ to, that is, I—“ Keith held up a finger, handing over a small scrap of paper with a grin.

“Here’s my number.  I’m at work from nine to seven-thirty, but I have off on Thursdays.  You like coffee?”

Keith didn’t think Lance could have looked more surprised if a hydrogen bomb had gone off in his face. “Are you…asking me out?”

“Is that okay?”  Keith asked, staring him down with an eyebrow quirked.  Lance’s smile was like warm syrup—spreading slow and catching the light—and when Hunk cleared his throat behind them they both jumped about a mile in the air.

“Not to ruin the moment, guys,” he said, sounding sheepish.  “But look at where you’re standing.”

Lance looked up and started laughing—everything else about this Christmas had been so strange, why _shouldn’t_ they be standing under the only sprig of mistletoe in the whole house?  Keith, however, suddenly looked very solemn.  He wound his fingers around Lance’s, moving in so close that all he saw was blue.  When spoke again, his breath brushed over the other boy’s skin.

“Hey, Santa Baby—“

Lance shuddered and pulled him in before he could finish his sentence.  The kiss was brief (probably for the sake of Rosa, who shrieked with glee when she walked into the front hallway), but it left Keith’s lips tingling with heat.

Lance looked at him, one corner of his mouth pulled up, and Keith resisted the urge to kiss the smirk right off of him.  Still a bit breathless, he waved goodbye to the others.  Lance opened the door for him, and when they locked eyes it was like electric shock.

“See you Thursday?”

As Keith walked down the street in the dazzling bright of the snow, he dared to hope that this was only the first Christmas.

Upstairs, Lance stared after him, knowing that it wouldn’t be the last.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Bit late for a Christmas fic, but hey, better late than never, right? Had so much fun writing this! Here's some of the music inspiration for this work:
> 
> Santa Baby (The song from the train station): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv-4YS8a4-o&list=PL-v2A0UFsceEV1KfgK2wEtpJJLJ69RbbO&index=10
> 
> Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (living room scene): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvasnnUL0SY&list=PL-v2A0UFsceEV1KfgK2wEtpJJLJ69RbbO&index=6


End file.
